Success Stories

Effective Recognition of Railroad Cars and Tank Cars

Many large-scale industrial companies feel a need to automate their control system processes. One effective approach to this challenge uses a camera system to identify railroad cars and tank cars with an integrated weighing system. The camera system analyzes the video images to identify the numbers on the railroad cars. The weighing system indicates the fill state of the car. The numbers on the car and the frames allows for non-ambiguous identification and assignment. Russian mineral oil company JSC ANK Bashneft introduced this kind of system at its subsidiaries, covering 20 facilities overall.

To generate the images, two Basler network cameras were installed on each control side. They work fully automatically to form picture of cars and their registered numbers on the cars and their frames, quickly and reliably. The trains pass by the control points at a speed of up to 30 km/h. The images of the cars are also posted to the video system with a time stamp. The system ultimately encompasses 84 IP cameras, 24 servers and 25 automated workstations.